Cancer patient gets fairy-tale bedroom

Speial Spaces puts focus on dream bedrooms

Evie Brown checks out her reorganized closet, complete with princess costumes and stuffed animals. (Jack McCarthy, Special to the Tribune)

It's a room fit for a little princess.

There's a wall mural featuring a leafy tree and fairy tale castle. A corner tea table is set with antique cups and saucers, and a closet has room for royal costumes and stuffed animals.

It took 20 volunteers about 10 hours on a whirlwind Saturday to create a special bedroom for Evie Brown, a 3-year-old cancer survivor from Aurora who wrapped up chemotherapy sessions this week.

"It's more than we even imagined," said her mother Kristin Brown. "It's just amazing and we're so appreciative."

Strangers crowded inside the house and Evie shyly clung to her parents. But it didn't take long to warm up and check out her nearly decorated surroundings and even invite her dad, Chuck, to sit down for tea.

Evie, who has shoulder length blond hair and bright blue eyes, then wandered to the next room to see the makeover for older brothers, Tommy and Jack.

For project coordinator Kelly Knox, a Naperville resident recently named Chicagoland chapter head for Special Spaces, it was a perfect end to her inaugural project.

"It was what I had envisioned in my mind, but I didn't know if we could pull it off," Knox said. "I had probably 20 people in and out of the house working all day and it went really, really well."

Knox's group is similar to Make-A-Wish Foundation, which fulfills wishes for ill children. But Special Spaces focuses strictly on making bedrooms a special place of peace and comfort for sick kids and their families.

Volunteers from District 204 schools -- including Waubonsie Valley High School -- performed much of the cleaning and painting while professionals, like muralist Ken Markiewicz of Naperville-based Crayons Gone Wild, turned a sketch into an expansive piece of art on Evie's wall.

"It doesn't even look like the same room," Kristin Brown said. "It's so beautiful and really captures Evie's interests -- the princess and the tea set. It's so incredible. It is a special space."

Her brothers' shared bedroom was turned into a sports-lovers refuge with scoreboard graphic and Notre Dame and football paraphernalia. There's also a spacious work area underneath a top bunk bed perfect for studying or, as one of the brothers suggested, playing with Legos.

Evie has spent much of her life battling T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia, the most common form of childhood cancer. She just concluded 28 months of chemotherapy treatment.

"It's been a struggle, it affects the whole family," Kristin Brown said. "When you get a cancer diagnosis, especially a child -- it affects the whole family. Cancer can sometimes be very isolating and very lonely. But (then) you see the outpouring of generosity and love and support."

Evie still faces periodic checkups and procedures, but her long-term survival prospects are good. According to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of America, the survival rate for children under age 5 is 90.8 percent.

Knox has several future projects lined up, but is open for more. She also seeks contributions of "time, talent and treasure," as well as corporate and individual donations.